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Certification Cambridge mercredi 13 mars 2024

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Certification Cambridge mercredi 13 mars 2024

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Learn English with our free online listening, grammar, vocabulary and reading activities. Practise your English and get ready for your Cambridge English exam.

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ex de CALENDRIER ANNEE TERMINALE 2023 24 

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ex de CALENDRIER ANNEE TERMINALE 2023 24 

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Graham Allison: Is war between China and the US inevitable?

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Graham Allison: Is war between China and the US inevitable?

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Is war between China and the US inevitable?

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Taking lessons from a historical pattern called “Thucydides’s Trap,” political scientist Graham Allison shows why a rising China and a dominant United States could be headed towards a violent collision no one wants -- and how we can summon the common sense and courage to avoid it.

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GR/ savoir relier 2 propositions - les mots de liaison

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GR/ savoir relier 2 propositions - les mots de liaison

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Anglais lycée : savoir relier 2 propositions - les mots de liaison

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GR/ savoir former des propositions relatives

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GR/ savoir former des propositions relatives

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Anglais lycée : savoir former des propositions relatives

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GR/Prononcer et savoir utiliser THE - Niveau B2

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GR/Prononcer et savoir utiliser THE - Niveau B2

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Anglais lycée : Prononcer et savoir utiliser THE - Niveau B2

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Anglais lycée : savoir utiliser l'article a / an

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Anglais lycée :  savoir utiliser l'article zéro

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New !!What People Get Wrong About African-American English | Otherwords

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New !!What People Get Wrong About African-American English | Otherwords

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What People Get Wrong About African-American English | Otherwords

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New!!!'Black English': How AAVE Developed From Slave Resistance & African Dialects | The Breakdown

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New!!!'Black English': How AAVE Developed From Slave Resistance & African Dialects | The Breakdown

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'Black English': How AAVE Developed From Slave Resistance & African Dialects | The Breakdown

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Alexa , google home are no threat to regional accents 

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Alexa , google home are no threat to regional accents 

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Hey, Google. Can you understand my accent?

Of course. You have an incredibly pleasing dialect.

So began my Saturday morning discussion with my Google Home Mini. And while I was happy to receive a compliment about my speech, that wasn't my motivation for asking the question. Our human-to-robot chat was triggered by recent news reports claiming that voice assistants are likely to "stamp out", "kill off" and make us "lose" our regional accents, described by some as "under threat".

Another apocalyptic story about language and another call for linguists to do some myth-busting, then.

These scaremongering headlines relate to the findings of a recent survey by the Life Science Centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, which claims that 79% of visitors to its Robots - Then and Now exhibition reported altering the way they speak in order to be understood by voice assistants, such as Alexa (Amazon), Google Assistant, Siri (Apple) and Cortana (Microsoft). Crucially, these visitors also reported having regional British accents, and their perceived need to accent-shift highlights two issues.

One issue is practical. People with non-standard accents are more likely to encounter difficulties communicating when interacting with their smart speakers. The other issue is social. Speech technology appears to privilege standard accents, such as southern standard British English (also known as received pronunciation). But what's important to note is that our virtual assistants are not inherently biased. They're simply replicating the human biases on which they are modelled.

Hey, Google. Do you like the way I speak?

Sorry, I can't judge. But I can play you some music.

Language-based discrimination is all around us and, when we ask our devices to play our favourite song and end up with something different or with a "Sorry, I don't understand", it can leave us wondering why our voices aren't being heard and why these machines seem to be working against those of us with regional accents.

The internet abounds with clips and complaints. Scottish accents are particularly tricky for voice recognition technology, as shown by research and popularised by the comedy sketch show, Burnistoun. But we have to bear in mind that recognising the wide variety of English accents that exist is no small feat (consider the various accents spoken within your region, then consider the plethora of accents spoken in English-speaking countries worldwide and by second-language speakers of English).

Research suggests that we humans are generally good at recognising where people are from based on their accents but can sometimes struggle, usually owing to a lack of previous exposure. So it makes sense that our virtual assistants also need to gain familiarity with regional accents through linguistic input in order to recognise - or even use - accents when interacting with us.

Hey, Google. Will smart speakers stamp out regional accents?

Sorry, I don't understand.

Okay, I probably pushed my Google Assistant a bit too far with this question but I was intrigued to see if it would foretell some sort of linguistic doomsday prophecy. And I was prepared to counter the end-times pessimism with the reassuring message that voice assistants won't lead to the loss of regional accents. Here are just a few reasons why.

Calm down

Human-to-robot interactions are much less frequent than human-to-human interactions. The majority of our everyday talk is designed for other humans. Changing our speech a few times a day to interact with smart speakers won't influence our accents more generally.

Our "smart-speaker accents" resemble accents that we already use on a regular basis. We tend not to change our accents drastically when talking to smart speakers. We might raise our volume, speak more slowly and enunciate more. We might pronounce things differently but only slightly. And we adapt our speech in similar ways in many other contexts: making phone calls, doing job interviews, speaking to people from other cities and countries.

Accents, and the language we use more generally, are fundamental to who we are. We create and enact our identities through language and other social practices. Through our speech, we might emphasise our professionalism in some settings, and our street cred in others. Our accents are often a source of regional pride and linked with a sense of ingroup loyalty and belonging. We're not robots using an input-output model of language. We speak in certain ways because it's meaningful to do so.

So, fear not, the end of rich and varied British accents is not nigh. If anything, voice-activated artificial intelligence makes regional speech an increasingly important feature of everyday interactions. Instead of seeing voice assistants as a threat to regional accents, we might be better to embrace the challenge of teaching them our lingo.

Hey, Google. Do you prefer to speak with a particular accent?

I'm afraid you'll have to put up with this one for now.

If we look at their ability to produce language, smart speakers have undoubtedly come a long way. My Google Assistant, for example, now speaks German, French, Japanese, Italian and Spanish, plus some language varieties within each category. It can respond to me with an Australian, Canadian, British, American, Indian, Singaporean or Irish accent of English (albeit mainly standard varieties at this stage, and often with glitches). In this sense, they are more representative and inclusive than ever before but, of course, there is still a way to go.

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Alexa and Google Home are no threat to regional accents - here's why

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Reports of the death of accents have been greatly exaggerated.

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Accent bias is real - Public Speaking for Non-Native English Speakers Video Tutorial | LinkedIn Learning, formerly Lynda.com

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Join Strictly Speaking Group and Peter Novak for an in-depth discussion in this video, Accent bias is real, part of Public Speaking for Non-Native English Speakers.

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Can your accent be a barrier to your employment 

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Can your accent be a barrier to your employment 

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The issue

There is a long history of accent-based prejudice in English-speaking countries, and although it is now perhaps less acceptable to voice negative views about other people's speech than it once was. Previous research has shown that speakers of standard varieties such as British Received Pronunciation are perceived to be better-educated, more competent, even better-looking, than speakers of non-standard varieties. Non-standard accents of English are widely considered inferior, even if they are thought quaint or charming. But often they are stigmatised as 'incorrect' or 'careless'.

It follows that these attitudes have the potential to influence decisions made by those responsible for recruiting employees, perhaps most particularly in 'elite' professions such as law or medicine, in which oral communication skills are especially highly valued. The Accent Bias in Britain (ABB) project investigates the extent to which accent-based bias may affect applicants' employment prospects using a variety of controlled experimental techniques, and trials several interventions designed to mitigate the effects of these, often unconscious, biases.

The research

Unequal outcomes for minority groups in professional hiring has been widely reported. Yet the role played by the best-known signal of class and ethnic difference in the UK - accent - has until now remained largely unexplored. However, it is known that accent may figure in how people are discriminated against in employment contexts. A 2006 survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development found that 76 per cent of employers admitted to discriminating against applicants on the basis of their accents, while only three per cent of employers nationally include accent or dialect differences as a protected characteristic.

A recent study by the Social Mobility Commission found that working-class candidates are often unable to gain access to elite professions, despite having the relevant qualifications and skills, because of informal 'poshness tests', such as a candidate's style of speaking. If recruiters, who act as gatekeepers to these professions, favour candidates for reasons of prestige rather than merit, it can lead to a vicious circle whereby non-traditional candidates are discriminated against, reducing their visibility in high prestige contexts, and further stigmatising their accents. The issue of whether accent bias exists, and when it can cross the line into actual discrimination, therefore urgently requires proper investigation, and our primary goals are:

To identify whether accent bias exists in professional hiring contexts, and what impacts this can have. We aim to provide a research-led knowledge resource on the presence of bias and its effects; to address several gaps in the existing research record; and to respond to the Social Mobility Commission's call to identify implicit hiring criteria that may perpetuate bias in recruitment.

To understand the causes and effects of any bias and to provide an informed, evidence-based understanding of attitudes to accents in the UK today. ABB offers an updated quantitative picture of attitudes to accents in Britain, a precise measure of what specific aspects of accent are the target of bias, and an examination of the real-world consequences of such attitudes.

To test tools, training and techniques that can be used to combat bias. We are carrying out controlled testing of the relative success or failure of different anti-bias interventions, aiming to provide policymakers with potential remedies for the effects of bias in employment in the UK and elsewhere.

The outcome

We focus on five major stakeholder and beneficiary groups for the project, each with distinct interests and priorities:

National policymakers, including the Social Mobility Commission, the leading national public advisory body that addresses impediments to social mobility

Human Resources organisations: HR representatives have indicated a particular interest in the project's assessment of the impacts of different types of training intervention

Legal profession: the group most directly affected by the project. Our Advisory Board includes Aspiring Solicitors, an organisation supporting diversity in the legal profession with a membership of over 20,000 aspiring lawyers and employers

University students, who are the next generation in elite professions

General public: a key beneficiary of better understandings of how language attitudes can impede social mobility.

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Can your accent be a barrier to your employment prospects?

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The standard accents of English in the UK and other countries are generally regarded very positively, associated with traits such as intelligence, competence, reliability and industriousness, while non-standard accents are often not thought of so favourably. Our research investigates the impact these different perceptions may have on UK applicants' access to employment in the elite occupations, in particular in the legal profession.

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Last summer, Triangle Investigations, a New York-based HR consultancy, examined allegations of accent discrimination at a global non-profit organisation. An Ethiopian-accented staff member had reported that his colleagues frequently interrupted him during Zoom calls, commented on the unintelligibility of his English and excluded him from meetings. He became self-conscious during the meetings that he was able to attend, and ended up using the chat feature instead of speaking up, says Kia Roberts, Triangle's founder and principal.

When Roberts and her team looked into the matter, they found that the allegations had substance, and that employees of colour had been treated differently; they were being spoken to disrespectfully, as if they weren't competent to hold their positions, and their opinions and suggestions weren't being taken seriously. The investigation ultimately led the non-profit to introduce employee training and periodic HR check-ins to try and remedy the issue.

Of course, this case of linguistic discrimination wasn't an isolated episode. Globally, more people are using English than ever, and it's a dominant language in business, science and government. English is constantly evolving, because of the diverse ways different nations and groups use it. Yet instead of embracing this linguistic diversity, we still rank particular types of English higher than others - which means that both native and non-native speakers who differ from what's considered 'standard' can find themselves judged, marginalised and even penalised for the way their English sounds.

Not every type of linguistic discrimination is intentional; many people who think they're being inclusive don't understand that their inherent biases are pushing them to make judgements they don't even know they're making. Yet no matter what's driving these kinds of incidents, workers feel lasting, often demoralising, effects. And, as these kinds of situations continue - especially when companies don't recognise or stop them - things can get worse for workers, as they're side-lined or flat-out excluded in the workplace.

As the globe becomes even more connected in a remote-work world, the ability for workers to be able to speak to each other effectively and respectfully is imperative. So, how do we end linguistic discrimination - and create a more inclusive, functional use of language to benefit native and non-native speakers alike?

Speakers from some multilingual countries are thought to use less 'legitimate' forms of English than others (Credit: Getty Images)

Covert or overt
Globally, non-native speakers of English outnumber native speakers three to one, although defining the term 'native English speaker' is complicated. The term usually refers to anyone who speaks English from early childhood, as their first language. But many children grow up learning multiple languages simultaneously - for instance, if their parents are from different places, or if a nation has several official languages.

A particular status is attached to English that sounds as if it comes from countries that are wealthy, majority white and mostly monolingual. According to this limited view, multilingual countries like Nigeria and Singapore have less 'legitimate' and desirable forms of English (even though English is an official language in both). Globally, the most respected types of English are varieties such as British, American and Australian, says Sender Dovchin, a sociolinguist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia.

Within any country, certain forms of English bring fewer benefits. To give just one example from the US, African-American English remains misunderstood and discriminated against. And on an international level, certain types of speakers face judgements based on perceptions of their nationality or race, rather than their actual communication skills. "When English is spoken by some Europeans, including for example French-, German-, Italian-accented English, they can be considered really cute, sophisticated, stylish and so forth," explains Dovchin. But, she adds, English spoken by Asians, Africans or Middle Easterners may be viewed as challenging and unpleasant.

This linguistic stereotyping applies even when those Asians, Africans or Middle Easterners are in fact native speakers of English. Just seeing an Asian face makes some Americans consider that speaker's English to be hard to understand, regardless of how they actually speak or where they were born. I was born in the US, hold a UK passport and have an English degree, but like many other people of Asian descent, I've had the surreal experience of people complimenting my English fluency.

These perceptions feed into linguistic racism, or racism based on accent, dialect and speech patterns. The overt form of linguistic racism can involve deliberate belittling or shaming, such as "ethnic-accent bullying" that occurs despite someone's actual English proficiency. Or it can be more covert, like the unwitting social exclusion of people with foreign-accented English, or a seemingly well-intended compliment toward an Asian American's English.

These examples show that it may not be obvious to the perpetrators what they're doing, because there are a number of subtle psychological mechanisms at play. Cognitively, it takes more work to understand a less familiar accent. The extra brainpower involved, as well as warmer feelings toward members of one's own group, can lead to negative attitudes toward a person speaking a different type of English. Overall, it's common to assume that non-native speakers are less truthful, less intelligent and less competent; psychology studies suggest that people attach less credibility to statements spoken in a foreign accent.

These subtle mechanisms feed into behaviours that can impact negatively on people speaking different forms of English. I've been guilty of this in practice. I've found myself gravitating to colleagues I can easily banter with (so that I don't have to explain or replace Americanisms like 'inside baseball' or British terms like 'take the piss'). I've edited away Indian English expressions in reports, like 'upgradation', without wondering why I treat 'upgrading' as the better term. And in bouts of impatience during work conversations, I've spoken over or finished the sentences of colleagues who are more hesitant.

Not every type of linguistic racism is intentional, but judgements are pervasive due to our inherent biases (Credit: Getty Images)

This type of bias can take a significant psychological toll. Dovchin's research shows that many people who are shamed or excluded because of their language develop inferiority complexes, and start to believe that they're actually less intelligent. Lots of multilingual people report being fairly confident in their English-language skills in their home countries, then losing their confidence due to the way they're treated in English-first countries.

At worst, linguistic racism can lead to deprivation in education, employment, health and housing. In the workplace, people with certain accents can be openly harassed (like a Puerto Rican call centre worker who was told by a customer, "your stupid accent makes me sick"), or excluded from specific opportunities (like a Pakistani transport worker in London whose manager kept him out of conference calls).

The discrimination might also mean that certain people don't even get through the door. For instance, Paul Graham, the founder of Y Combinator, which directs seed funding to start-ups, has openly admitted that the programme is biased against applicants with strong foreign accents. In an interview with business publication Inc., he speculated that "it could be that anyone with half a brain would realise you're going to be more successful if you speak idiomatic English, so they must just be clueless if they haven't gotten rid of their strong accent". An outcry followed these comments, but Graham was unrepentant, writing "you can't make it be work to understand you". This is a classic expression of native-speaker privilege: the minority of global English speakers demanding that the majority change.
How to chip away at linguistic racism
Linguistic racism needs to be tackled head on, both at a corporate and individual level. "If we wait for it to happen organically, it will never happen," believes Dovchin.

First, organisations need to be strategic about having ongoing conversations about linguistic diversity as a type of diversity, educating staff about how language-related biases affect communications and opportunities and incorporating this into policies.

But, on an individual level, speakers of English as a first language can make their English more accessible. They can slow down, and avoid inside jokes and idioms, for instance. They can talk less in meetings to give more space to non-native speakers, while also allowing non-native speakers to chair meetings and set the tone for communications. They can also pay attention to body language and improve their listening skills - for instance, by seeking out popular culture featuring varied groups of people, and thus varied ways of communicating. With greater exposure, the brain becomes better at understanding differently accented speech. Overall, everyone can become more aware of language-related biases.

Suresh Canagarajah, a linguist at Pennsylvania State University, US, says that given how transnational work has become, we all need to get better at communicating with people speaking all kinds of English. "You can't afford to say 'I don't understand Chinglish or I don't understand Indian English', because you're going to lose out on that market." This certainly applies to hiring decisions; highly qualified candidates may be overlooked if they trigger a hiring manager's biases about less prestigious types of English. There, says Canagarajah, "You're focusing on the wrong thing, and maybe losing on a lot of expertise."

Yet even if companies and individuals do what they can to level the playing field, another option is to change our ideas about what constitutes 'good' English. In many workplace settings, it would make more sense to focus on effective communication rather than flowery prose or slangy chat. In functional settings, someone who is adept at understanding varied types of English is actually a better communicator than a person who can only understand their own form, whether it's considered native or not.

I've been reflecting a lot on the extent to which my career depends on my privilege as a so-called native English speaker. To teach English in Romania, I wasn't required to have any teaching qualifications; simply being American was enough. To be hired to write and edit publications, my primary asset has been my familiarity with the kind of English that carries global cachet.

The very least that I, and others like me, can do with this privilege is to become aware of its effects and reduce the ways that we contribute to it. Individual acts of thoughtfulness can't dismantle the structures of power that keep North American and Western European English dominant. But they can help cultivate an appreciation of English in all its diversity.

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The pervasive problem of 'linguistic racism'

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Not everyone who speaks English is treated the same way. What happens when accent discrimination creeps in to our conscious and unconscious - and what do we do about our biases?

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TheGuardian accent discrimination in the uk 

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TheGuardian accent discrimination in the uk 

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Accent discrimination is alive and kicking in England, study suggests

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British Academy to feature large-scale project exploring prejudice based on how people speak

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I work at a university in New York with a large population of international students.

Walking around campus the other day, I was perplexed to see flyers advertising accent reduction or even accent elimination. Having been born in Argentina, grown up in Sweden, and spent most of my life in the United States, I have, to some degree, a foreign accent in every language I speak.

Something in my Spanish makes taxi drivers in Buenos Aires ask me where I'm from. In Swedish, my accent is very slight, but I have the vocabulary of a 12-year-old.

In my early 20s, I lived in London for a couple of years, which left its mark. But the fact is, I got English almost as a gift, through Swedish. And there is still a Scandinavian lilt in there.

Does my accent need correcting? I don't think so. To sound like who, exactly? A native speaker? What would that even mean?

Looking at accent-reduction classes online, the third hit I got wasn't aimed at Eastern European or South American immigrants. It actually read, "Want to get rid of your New York accent?"

An accent can be a stigma, even within native speakers of the same language. These variations, determined by geography, class, and race, are always identified with stereotypes, and fleeing from one means embracing another.

In England a Russian writer may adopt an upper-crust British accent. In California, a Texan actor may aspire to a San Fernando Valley cadence. Even though everybody has an accent, there certainly is such a thing as accent discrimination.

Most of us have either suffered or witnessed it at some point. I can easily tell when I'm not being understood or when someone is underscoring a difference in pronunciation just to show me my place, because accent discrimination is, in the end, all about place, who belongs and who doesn't.

An accent is the echo of one language or tone in another. I, for one, enjoy these ghostly presences of something strange in a familiar environment. They are a reminder of the fact that language doesn't belong to anyone, not even to its native speakers.

Language is shared. It is, in principle, a space where everyone is welcome and cooperates toward mutual comprehension. And the very fact that there are accents in the first place, the fact that we can still understand each other through all the differences, is the most conclusive proof of the hospitality at the heart of every language.

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We stigmatize accents, but language belongs to everyone

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Scholar and novelist Hernan Diaz was born in Argentina, grew up in Sweden, and spent most of his life in the United States. To some degree, he says, he has a foreign accent in every language he speaks. Diaz shares his humble opinion on accent discrimination and "the hospitality at the heart of every language."

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Are half the words in English actually French? 🤔 We break down the math on More or Less: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5b6z | BBC World Service | BBC World Service · Original audio

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BBC words borrowed from French

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Are half the words in English actually French? 🤔 We break down the math on More or Less: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5b6z | BBC World Service | BBC World Service · Original audio

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Are half the words in English actually French? 🤔 We break down the math on More or Less: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct5b6z. BBC World Service · Original audio

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Conversation why people might discriminate 

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Conversation why people might discriminate 

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If someone asked you to read this text aloud in a French accent or an Italian one, you would likely understand what that means and be able to produce some version of it, even if it's not entirely accurate (assuming you're not a native French or Italian speaker). You might even adopt one spontaneously if quoting from The Godfather.

On the face of it, we often enjoy hearing different accents. The way we talk simply reflects the sounds of the language in the environment in which we grew up. It should not have any social significance. But in reality, people do attribute value to accents and discriminate against non-native speakers.

Although some accents, such as French, might be perceived as pleasant, research into English speakers in the US and UK shows that a foreign accent is often perceived negatively.

For example, people rate salespeople as less knowledgeable and convincing if they have an accent, and some research indicates that they are less likely to recommend someone for hiring or promotion if the person has a foreign accent.

Interestingly, the discrimination often seems to be independent of whether the accent of the speaker is perceived as desirable or not. For example, people were more interested in receiving a voucher for a coffee shop if they listened to a message from a native speaker rather than someone with a foreign accent, regardless of whether the foreign accent was French (an accent often considered as desireable), or Chinese.

Part of the bias seems to derive from the fact that a foreign accent signals a person as an outgroup member - someone who is not part of their usual circles - and people tend to favour ingroup over outgroup members. This is a behaviour that starts in infancy, probably because it's a direct cue as to whether someone is familiar and part of our "social group".

Read more: Working-class and ethnic minority accents in south-east England judged as less intelligent - new research

It's not just prejudice

In our recent study we show that people might discriminate against non-native speakers even if they are not prejudiced. That's because it can be harder to process foreign-accented speech - which is pronounced differently to the native norms - including accents which we do not perceive in a negative way at all. And people tend to believe information less if it's harder to process.

When we presented participants with recordings of trivia statements such as "the sun shrinks five feet every hour", participants rated the same trivia statements as more likely to be true when they were said by a native speaker compared with a Polish-accented speaker.

If at least part of the bias was due to difficulty in processing foreign-accented speech, then making it easier for participants to understand the accent should increase their tendency to believe non-native speakers. We know from prior research that exposure to accent makes it easier to understand it. So, we exposed half of our participants to stories read by Polish-accented speakers before they rated the trivia task. The other half listened to the same stories read by native speakers.

First, we checked whether exposure to Polish-accented speakers improved participants' comprehension of Polish-accented speech. An accent comprehension task showed that it did.

A key finding of our study was that the exposure to Polish-accented speech also reduced participants' bias against non-native speakers.

While participants who were first exposed to Polish-accented speech still rated trivia statements as more likely to be true when they were read by native speakers than when they were read by Polish-accented speakers, the difference was smaller. We also found that the participants who performed better on the accent comprehension task were more likely to believe the trivia statements read by the Polish-accented speakers.

Let's celebrate accents

Our study shows that simply increasing exposure to foreign-accented speech can reduce difficulties in accent processing and bias. So by creating more diverse environments where native and non-native speakers regularly interact, we could potentially help counteract any unconscious discrimination on the basis of accent. Contact between native and non-native speakers can also help to reduce prejudice.

At the same time, a cultural change is needed. In addition to promoting diversity, we should all, as a first step, be aware of the fact that each of us has an accent. And that it is simply based on the sounds of the linguistic environment in which we grew up. Accents do not reflect intelligence, and nor are they related to our proficiency in a language. Indeed, non-native speakers can of course be highly fluent in a language even while retaining their native accent.

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Here's why people might discriminate against foreign accents - new research

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New research shows that increasing exposure to foreign accents makes it easier to process - and that can reduce bias which is not based on negative perceptions or prejudice.

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Those with native accents are often unaware of the pervasive bias that those with perceived foreign ... [+]
getty

A new study from Sutton Trust indicates that accent discrimination is still a pervasive issue. The study looked at the experiences of 17-18-year-old university applicants, 18-21-year-old university students and young professionals between the ages of 21-24. The study participants were all within the United Kingdom. The research found that there was "accent prestige" for those who spoke what is sometimes referred to as the "Queen's English." The researchers also found that there was accent bias for participants from industrial cities like Manchester, Liverpool, and Birmingham, which are areas that are considered to be working-class within England. Both ethnic minority accents of Afro-Caribbeans as well as Indians also experienced bias. Similar findings have been revealed in previous studies within the United States. One study found that within the Lewiston-Auburn area of Maine there was accent discrimination against those with African accents. The researcher noted that "those with perceived African accents are seen to be the Lewiston-Auburn area archetype of African refugees and migrants...being assumed to have little education, job skills, intelligence, and trustworthiness within the workplace." In that same study, the non-white individuals that were perceived to have English language barriers were believed to be unemployable.

Within the United States, accent discrimination falls under language-related discrimination, which is protected under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Language discrimination can show up in a number of different ways in the workplace: Employers may decide not to hire a job candidate because of an unconscious perception that the candidate is not qualified or doesn't "fit" the job role. Accent bias can also show up in the form of "English-only" signs, which are illegal, unless speaking only English is necessary to perform the job. Employees with non-native accents may also experience bias when it comes to performance evaluations. Those rating the job performance of non-native speakers may unconsciously rate them as less favorable. One study from the University of Chicago found that a foreign accent makes a person seem less truthful. Accent discrimination may also show up as hostility in the workplace. In one case, a Filipino nurse indicates that her director gave her negative feedback and humiliated her because of her thick accent. She ended up suing her hospital for national origin discrimination.

For many foreign-born Americans, the feeling of being an outsider is ever-present.
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One educator who immigrated to the United States in the 1980s shared her experiences with accent bias but preferred to remain anonymous. "No matter how good of English, or no matter how much education I have...I have to justify my mere presence...nobody else is being asked to explain anything." She went on to explain that our accents are shaped by many different factors. "What we call 'accent' is a mislabel. What people refer to as an accent is actually linguistic intonation. It comes from the language you have spoken the most...or during the first part of your life...accent is the way each individual sounds." For many foreign-born Americans, the feeling of being an outsider is ever-present. "I wasn't aware that it was discrimination initially," the educator explains. "I was just embarrassed and it impacted me in my career when I started teaching because students were making fun of me."

There are several ways that employers can address and mitigate accent bias in the workplace. Overcoming this type of discrimination should take a multi-pronged approach. First, there needs to be more awareness around the issue. Those with native accents are often unaware of the pervasive bias that those with perceived foreign accents experience. Even when customers may seem to prefer Native-English speakers, customer wants and desires cannot and should not dictate workplace policies and practices. Research indicates that call center customer satisfaction rates dropped when the call center moved outside of the United States. Those making hiring and employment decisions should understand that customer preference is not a permissible reason for discrimination. In addition to ensuring that there is education and training around our inherent accent biases, it is vital for workplace practices, including hiring processes, to be as standardized and objective as possible.

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Accent Discrimination Is Still A Pervasive Issue In The Workplace, Research Finds

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A new study from Sutton Trust indicates that accent discrimination is still a pervasive issue. This article explores the bias that those with foreign accents experience and unpacks ways that workplaces can mitigate this type of bias.

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Do We Need a Standard English (With David Crystal)

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28 nov. 2023 Baccalauréat général et technologique à partir de la session 2021

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28 nov. 2023 Baccalauréat général et technologique à partir de la session 2021

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Baccalauréat général et technologique à partir de la session 2021

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Baccalauréat général et technologique à partir de la session 2021

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Portail de l’Académie de Paris, Présentation des épreuves de langues vivantes du baccalauréat, du tronc commun et de spécialité (LLCE/AMC)

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'English Only': The movement to limit Spanish speaking in US

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'English Only': The movement to limit Spanish speaking in US

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There are an estimated 41 million Spanish speakers in the US and that number is increasing. Yet there is also a small but vocal movement to restrict the spread of Spanish.

"This is a country where we speak English. It's English. You have to speak English!" Donald Trump often said during his 2016 US presidential campaign.

The then presidential candidate made this point to cater to his supporters but he also used it as a strategy against some of his adversaries in the race for Republican Party nomination.

One particular target was rival and former Florida governor Jeb Bush, who sometimes expressed himself in Spanish.

Mr Trump's tough approach to immigration paid off among sectors of the electorate that somehow share his opinion that "in the United States you have to speak English".

However, Mr Trump's demand has no legal basis: the US has no official language.

Videos on social networks show people criticising others for speaking Spanish in public places.

The message of these videos is clear. If you are in this country, you have to speak its language.

Those viral attacks generally do not occur against tourists who speak Dutch, French or Italian, for example. They are usually directed against people who speak Spanish and who, because of their work or simply because of their physical appearance, are classified as immigrants.

"These reactions against people who speak Spanish are probably not new," Heidi Beirich, a researcher at the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), tells BBC Mundo. "But Donald Trump unleashed feelings that were not expressed publicly so often before."

The SPLC monitors hate groups in the US, which they define as any organisation that - based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities - has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.

In this sense, the SPLC qualifies as hate groups several organisations that it considers anti-immigrant, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Washington DC-based Center for Immigration Studies (CIS).

Also on their list is ProEnglish, which advocates for English to be designated as the official language of the United States.

All of them were created in recent decades by John Tanton, a white American far-right nationalist, who died in July of this year. Mr Tanton founded at least 12 anti-immigrant organisations, six of which have been designated hate groups by the SPLC.

The aforementioned ProEnglish is one of the main organisations pushing the "English Only" movement, also known as "English First" or "Official English" movement.

Part of ProEnglish's official platform states: "In a pluralistic nation such as ours, the function of government should be to foster and support the similarities that unite us, rather than institutionalise the differences that divide us."

The organisation focuses its efforts on lobbying to convince legislators and public opinion of the need to adopt English as an official language at all levels of government.

In addition, the group calls for an end to bilingual education in favour of language immersion programs in English in American public schools.

While ProEnglish establishes on its website that "the right to use other languages must be respected", the group has been criticised by those who consider their agenda to be discriminatory.

"They are careful to be called ProEnglish and not 'anti-Spanish'. But it is clear that their ideology is supremacist, referring to English as a symbol of US cultural heritage when this country has never been a project only in English," says SPLC researcher Heidi Beirich.

Another of the organisations that stands out in the campaign to make English the official language is US English, founded in 1983 by Democratic Senator SI Hayakawa, who was of Japanese ancestry.

Its members say they have nothing against people who speak languages other than English, but they think that immigrants who know English are more successful and can carve out a better future in the US.

They also consider that the translation costs that government agencies incur on could be invested in other matters.

BBC Mundo tried unsuccessfully to interview representatives from ProEnglish and US English.

The discussion about English as an official language in the US is not new.

In 1753, US founding father Benjamin Franklin expressed his fears that the growing population of immigrants of German descent would make English a minority language. In the early 1900s, US President Theodore Roosevelt stated his belief. "We only have room for one language in this country, and it is English."

During the 1960s Civil Rights movement, the US Congress passed several laws that guaranteed citizens' access to essential public documents - such as ballots - in languages other than English. But at the same time, nationalist and English Only movements gained strength.

Geoff Pullum, professor of general linguistics at the University of Edinburgh and co-author of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, says there are two broad issues.

"One about whether English should be made the official language of government by law and one about whether use of or teaching in languages other than English should be made illegal.

"It is truly amazing that both these dreadful and stupid ideas are still alive. They should have died in the 1980s. If it is made merely a law that English should be used for government, then one day when the population of New Mexico or Arizona or California has reached 51% Hispanic, a law could be passed to override that!"

Attempts to make bilingual classrooms illegal defy research in educational sociolinguistics, he warns.

"It has been found through careful testing that accepting bilingualism or bidialectalism in the classroom, and transitioning students gently toward the standard language or dialect, works better, much better, than proscribing rival languages or dialects," he says.

He believes the "English Only" movement is driven mostly by hostility towards immigrants and their languages and cultures.

Currently, 32 US states have English as the official language. Basically this means that the governments of those states have to offer all their information and documentation in English.

But similarly, state governments are obliged to provide information in other languages when it comes to health or public safety issues.

As for the federal government, all attempts to make English the official language by law have failed. Since 2005, Republican Congressman Steve King has submitted every two years the English Language Unity Act to the US Congress.

But the bill has never obtained the necessary legislative support.

That does not prevent the promoters of the idea from continuing to raise their voice.

"The attacks that we now see on people who speak Spanish were already happening before," says Ms Beirich.

"But when you are the subject of such an attack and you know that millions of people share your attacker's vision, including the president of the United States, you feel much more vulnerable," she concludes.

This article is part of ¿Hablas español?, a BBC road trip around the US to show the power of the Spanish language and Latinos in the age of Trump. You can find out more at BBC Mundo

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'English Only': The movement to limit Spanish speaking in US

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Attempts persist to make English the official language of the US. But what real power does it have?

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The Last Kingdom On Netflix | Anglo-Saxon Words Still In Use Today | English History

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The Last Kingdom On Netflix | Anglo-Saxon Words Still In Use Today | English History

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The Last Kingdom On Netflix | Anglo-Saxon Words Still In Use Today | English History

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English is the language of Shakespeare and the language of Chaucer. It's spoken in dozens of countries around the world, from the United States to a tiny island named Tristan da Cunha. It reflects the influences of centuries of international exchange, including conquest and colonization, from the Vikings through the 21st century. Here are 25 maps and charts that explain how English got started and evolved into the differently accented languages spoken today.

The origins of English

1) Where English comes from

English, like more than 400 other languages, is part of the Indo-European language family, sharing common roots not just with German and French but with Russian, Hindi, Punjabi, and Persian. This beautiful chart by Minna Sundberg, a Finnish-Swedish comic artist, shows some of English's closest cousins, like French and German, but also its more distant relationships with languages originally spoken far from the British Isles such as Farsi and Greek.

2) Where Indo-European languages are spoken in Europe today

Saying that English is Indo-European, though, doesn't really narrow it down much. This map shows where Indo-European languages are spoken in Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia today, and makes it easier to see what languages don't share a common root with English: Finnish and Hungarian among them.

3) The Anglo-Saxon migration

Here's how the English language got started: After Roman troops withdrew from Britain in the early 5th century, three Germanic peoples - the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes - moved in and established kingdoms. They brought with them the Anglo-Saxon language, which combined with some Celtic and Latin words to create Old English. Old English was first spoken in the 5th century, and it looks incomprehensible to today's English-speakers. To give you an idea of just how different it was, the language the Angles brought with them had three genders (masculine, feminine, and neutral). Still, though the gender of nouns has fallen away in English, 4,500 Anglo-Saxon words survive today. They make up only about 1 percent of the comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary, but nearly all of the most commonly used words that are the backbone of English. They include nouns like "day" and "year," body parts such as "chest," arm," and "heart," and some of the most basic verbs: "eat," "kiss," "love," "think," "become." FDR's sentence "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself" uses only words of Anglo-Saxon origin.

4) The Danelaw

The next source of English was Old Norse. Vikings from present-day Denmark, some led by the wonderfully named Ivar the Boneless, raided the eastern coastline of the British Isles in the 9th century. They eventually gained control of about half of the island. Their language was probably understandable by speakers of English. But Old Norse words were absorbed into English: legal terms such as "law" and "murder" and the pronouns "they," "them," and "their" are of Norse origin. "Arm" is Anglo-Saxon, but "leg" is Old Norse; "wife" is Anglo-Saxon," but "husband" is Old Norse.

5)The Norman Conquest

The real transformation of English - which started the process of turning it into the language we speak today - came with the arrival of William the Conqueror from Normandy, in today's France. The French that William and his nobles spoke eventually developed into a separate dialect, Anglo-Norman. Anglo-Norman became the language of the medieval elite. It contributed around 10,000 words, many still used today. In some cases, Norman words ousted the Old English words. But in others, they lived side by side as synonyms. Norman words can often sound more refined: "sweat" is Anglo-Saxon, but "perspire" is Norman. Military terms (battle, navy, march, enemy), governmental terms (parliament, noble), legal terms (judge, justice, plaintiff, jury), and church terms (miracle, sermon, virgin, saint) were almost all Norman in origin. The combination of Anglo-Norman and Old English led to Middle English, the language of Chaucer.

6) The Great Vowel Shift

If you think English spelling is confusing - why "head" sounds nothing like "heat," or why "steak" doesn't rhyme with "streak," and "some" doesn't rhyme with "home" - you can blame the Great Vowel Shift. Between roughly 1400 and 1700, the pronunciation of long vowels changed. "Mice" stopped being pronounced "meese." "House" stopped being prounounced like "hoose." Some words, particularly words with "ea," kept their old pronounciation. (And Northern English dialects were less affected, one reason they still have a distinctive accent.) This shift is how Middle English became modern English. No one is sure why this dramatic shift occurred. But it's a lot less dramatic when you consider it took 300 years. Shakespeare was as distant from Chaucer as we are from Thomas Jefferson.

The spread of English

7) The colonization of America

The British settlers coming to different parts of America in the 17th and 18th centuries were from different regional, class, and religious backgrounds, and brought with them distinctive ways of speaking. Puritans from East Anglia contributed to the classic Boston accent; Royalists migrating to the South brought a drawl; and Scots-Irish moved to the Appalaichans. Today's American English is actually closer to 18th-century British English in pronunciation than current-day British English is. Sometime in the 19th century, British pronunciation changed significantly, particularly whether "r"s are pronounced after vowels.

8) Early exploration of Australia

Many of the first Europeans to settle in Australia, beginning in the late 1700s, were convicts from the British Isles, and the Australian English accent probably started with their children in and around Sydney. Australia, unlike the US, doesn't have a lot of regional accents. But it does have many vocabulary words borrowed from Aboriginal languages: kangaroo, boomerang, and wombat among them.

9) Canada

British Loyalists flooded into Canada during the American Revolution. As a result, Canadian English sounds a lot like American English, but it's maintained many of the "ou" words from its British parent (honour, colour, valour). There's also some uniquely Canadian vocabulary, many of which is shown in this word cloud. Canada is undergoing a vowel shift of its own, where "milk" is pronounced like "melk" by some speakers. But unlike British and American English, which has a variety of regional accents, Canadian English is fairly homogenous.

10) English in India

The British East India Company brought English to the Indian subcontinent in the 17th century, and the period of British colonialism established English as the governing language. It still is, in part due to India's incredible linguistic diversity. But languages from the subcontinent contributed to English, too. The words "shampoo," "pajamas," "bungalow," "bangle," and "cash" all come from Indian languages. The phrase "I don't give a damn" was once speculated to refer to an Indian coin. This probably isn't true - the Oxford English Dictionary disagrees - but it shows that language exchange during the colonial era was a two-way street.

11) Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha is the most remote archipelago in the world: it's in the South Atlantic Ocean, more or less halfway between Uruguay and South Africa. It's also the furthest-flung locaction of native English speakers. Tristan da Cunha is part of a British overseas territory, and its nearly 300 residents speak only English. Tristan da Cunha English has a few unusual features: double negatives are common, as is the use of "done" in the past tense ("He done walked up the road.")

English around the world

12) Countries with English as the official language

Fifty-eight countries have English as an official language. This doesn't include most of the biggest English-speaking countries - the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom don't have official languages. This map shows where English is either the official or the dominant language. Particularly in Africa, it also doubles as a fairly accurate map of British colonial history.

13) Which countries in Europe can speak English

English is one of the three official "procedural languages" of the European Union. The president of German recently suggested making it the only official language. But how well people in each European Union country speak English varies considerably. This map shows where most people can - and can't - have an English conversation.

14) Where people read English Wikipedia

English dominated in the early days of the Internet. But languages online are getting more diverse. In 2010, English no longer made up the majority of the text written online, as advancements in technology made it easier for non-Roman alphabets to be displayed. Still, English is the dominant language of Wikipedia - both when you consider the language articles are written in, and where people use the English-language version, as is shown in this map.

15) Where new English words come from

This fascinating chart based on data from the Oxford English Dictionary shows where words originally came from when they first started to appear in English. Most words come originally from Germanic languages, Romance languages, or Latin, or are formed from English words already in use. But as this screenshot from 1950 shows, words also come to English from all over the world.

16) How vocabulary changes based on what you're writing

Borrowing words from other language didn't stop when Old English evolved into Middle English. The Enlightenment brought an influx of Greek and Latin words into English - words for scientific concepts that moved into broader use as science developed. Scientific vocabulary is still usually based on Greek or Latin roots that aren't used in ordinary conversation. On the other hand, Mark Twain, master of the American dialect, relied heavily on good old Anglo-Saxon words in his work, a reflection of the endurance of those very old words for the most ordinary concepts in everyday life.

17) Vocabulary of Shakespeare vs. rappers

Designer Matt Daniels looked at the first 35,000 words of artists' rap lyrics - and the first 35,000 words of Moby-Dick, along with 35,000 words from Shakespeare's plays - to compare the size of their vocabularies. He found that some have bigger vocabularies than Shakespeare or Melville. Of course, vocabulary size isn't the only measure of artistry. But it's an interesting look at how English has changed.

18) Where English learners speak the language proficiently

English is the second most-spoken language in the world. But there are even more people learning English (secondary speakers) than people who claim English as their first language. Here's where people tend to score well and poorly on tests of English from Education First. Green and blue countries have higher proficiency levels than red, yellow and orange ones. Scandinavian countries, Finland, Poland, and Austria fare best. The Middle East generally lacks proficient English speakers.

19) Scores on the Test of English as a Foreign Language

The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) is required for foreign students from non-English-speaking countries to enroll at American universities, among other things. Here's where students tend to perform well. (English-speaking countries are included on the map, but the test is only required for people for whom English is not a first language.) The Netherlands gets the top score: an average of 100 points out of a possible 120.

20) Immigrants to the US are learning English more quickly than previous generations

Concerns about whether immigrants are assimilating in the US often focus on criticisms that they're not learning English quickly enough (think of outrage over phone systems that ask you to select English or Spanish). But in fact immigrants to the US today are learning and using English much more quickly than immigrants at the turn of the 20th century. More than 75 percent of all immigrants, and just less than 75 percent of Spanish-speaking immigrants, speak English within the first five years, compared to less than 50 percent of immigrants between 1900 and 1920.

Dialects and regionalisms

21) Where Cockneys come from

The traditional definition of a Cockney in London is someone born within earshot of the bells of St.-Mary-le-Bow church -- the area highlighted in tan on this map. (The smaller circles within it are where the bells can be heard more loudly in the noisier modern world.) The distinctive Cockney accent or dialect is best known for its rhyming slang, which dates back to at least the 19th century. The slang starts as rhymes, but often the rhyming word is dropped - "to have a butcher's," meaning "to take a look," came from the rhyming of "butcher's hook" with "look." The phrase "blow a raspberry" - which has spread far beyond London - originally comes from the rhyming of "raspberry tart" with "fart.")

22) Dialects and accents in Britain

There are three general types of British accents in England: Northern English, Southern English, and the Midlands accent. One of the most obvious features is whether "bath" is pronounced like the a in "cat" (as it is in the US and in Northern English dialects) or like the a in "father" (as it is in Southern English dialects). The generic British accent, meanwhile, is known as "Received Pronunciation," which is basically a Southern English accent used among the elite that erases regional differences. Here's a video of one woman doing 17 British accents, most of which are shown on the map.

23) North American vowel shift

There's another vowel shift going on in American English right now. In the Great Lakes region, short vowel sounds are changing. This is remarkable because short vowel sounds (think of the short "a" in "cat," rather than the long a in "Kate") actually survived the Great Vowel Shift in the 17th century. Short vowel sounds haven't changed for hundreds of years - but now they are, in Milwaukee, Chicago, Cleveland, and other cities and even small towns around the Great Lakes, at least among white speakers. "Buses" is pronounced like "bosses." "Block" comes out like "black." Nobody's sure why, but it appears to have started as long ago as the 1930s. The map shows which areas have adopted various stages of the vowel shift.

24) American dialects

Here's a detailed map of how Americans talk. The bright green dialects are all subsets of "general Northern" - a generic American accent used by about two-thirds of the US, according to linguist Robert Delaney, who built this map. But it includes many subsets. The Eastern New England accent is the "pahk the cah in Hahvahd Yahd" accent. In the South, you can see how English has and hasn't changed over generations. The South Midland accent retains some words from Elizabethan English. And the Coastal Southern accent retains some colonial vocabulary, like "catty-corner."

25) You guys vs. y'all

One thing that English lost over time is the useful second-person plural. "You" became standard sometime in the 1500s, and unlike French (which differentiates between talking to one person and talking to several, and between talking to someone you're intimate with and someone you're not), it's pretty much a catchall. But American English has found plenty of ways to fill the gap. There's the Southern "y'all," the Pittsburghian "yinz," and the Bostonian "youse." Here's how people in the US address more than one person, from the invaluable dialect maps from North Carolina State's Joshua Katz.

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Editors Sarah Kliff, Max Fisher

Developer Yuri Victor

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1) A bad penny always turns up a) a bad person enjoys breaking bad news b) a bad person always reappears c) a bad person always disappears 2) If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing it well a) choose jobs that pay well b) ask someone else to do your job c) complete the job to the best of your ability 3) Bad news travels fast a) no need to try to hide the bad news b) you should work faster in order not to be criticized c) do not pay attention to rumours 4) Charity begins at home a) your country should help people in other countries b) you should help people in other countries c) you should help people close to you first 5) Pretty is as pretty does a) she is pretty but not very clever b) she is pretty but very unpleasant c) she is pretty and clever 6) Jack of all trades, master of none a) you are very skilled whatever the task you have to carry out b) you should learn many jobs so as to have more skills c) you should focus on one job and do it well 7) Speaking of the devil a) the person you have just mentioned is arriving b) the person you have just mentioned is leaving c) the person you have just mentioned is your best friend 8) Barking dogs seldom bite a) people who complain all the time sound like a barking dog b) Aggressive people might bite you c) Someone who keeps threatening the others usually does not act 9) Waste not, want not a) If you use something wisely and completely, you are likely not to be in need b) Do not hesitate to get rid of something that is useless c) Do not waste your time on useless things 10) Beggars cannot be choosers a) You must always be demanding b) Do not be proud and ask for help if you need it c) You should not turn down an option if it is the only one available to you

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1) A bad penny always turns up 2) If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing it well 3) Bad news travels fast 4) Charity begins at home

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​Dictionnaire anglais-français

Bienvenue au dictionnaire WordReference. Le site vous propose deux dictionnaires anglais-français :

le dictionnaire WordReference
le dictionnaire Collins

Le dictionnaire anglais-français WordReference est un dictionnaire vivant et en constante expansion. Il contient 82808 termes et 205472 traductions en anglais et en français et continue de s'enrichir et de s'améliorer. Des milliers de mots qui ne sont pas dans le dictionnaire principal se trouvent dans les questions et réponses du forum de WordReference. Si vous ne trouvez pas un terme, vous pouvez poser une question dans le forum français-anglais, où de nombreux locuteurs anglophones et francophones du monde entier se feront une joie de vous aider à trouver la bonne traduction.

Le dictionnaire anglais-français Collins comporte 182 000 mots et locutions avec 247 000 traductions. C'est un dictionnaire de qualité publié par l'une des maisons d'édition les plus réputées du monde.

WordReference a également un conjugueur très complet.

Lancez-vous et cherchez dès à présent un mot en le tapant dans la barre de recherche ci-dessus !

Le dictionnaire Collins Français-Anglais propose plus de 175 000 mots et 234 000 traductions. C'est un dictionnaire de qualité, reconnu parmi les meilleurs de sa catégorie.
Conjugueur de verbes
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Créer vos propres nuages de mots pour mémoriser les champs lexicaux 

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Créer vos propres nuages de mots pour mémoriser les champs lexicaux 

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EdWordle is a tool for editing "word clouds" based on the Wordle. The initial word cloud can be generated from the input text or read from an existing one. You can re-font, re-colore, resize, move, rotate, add and delete words to create custom visualizations.
EdWordle's main benefit is that it allows a neighborhood-preserving editing process, which keeps words at predictable and close locations during and after the editing process. Like Wordle, the images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can save them to your own desktop to use as you wish.

Create Now "

Some examples created by others and you can further edit them:

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EdWordle is a tool for editing "word clouds" based on the Wordle. The initial word cloud can be generated from the input text or read from an existing one. You can re-font, re-colore, resize, move, rotate, add and delete words to create custom visualizations.

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Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration.

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Our long-running series of topical discussion and new vocabulary, brought to you by your favourite BBC Learning English presenters.

From the archives

All 6 Minute English programmes pre-September 2014 can be found here.

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Our long-running series of topical discussion and new vocabulary, brought to you by your favourite BBC Learning English presenters. All 6 Minute English programmes pre-September 2014 can be found here.

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LyricsTraining est la nouvelle façon d'apprendre l'anglais et d'autres langues par le biais de la musique et des paroles de tes chansons préférées

Améliore ta compréhension orale et pratique des accents différents avec les meilleures vidéos musicales en remplissant les paroles des chansons et avec le Karaoké

De milliers de professeurs dans le monde utilisent déjà LyricsTraining pour enseigner des langues et motiver leurs élèves à l' immersion linguistique

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Apprendre des Langues Gratuitement avec de la Musique!

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S'amuser avec l'apprentissage des langues comme jamais en jouant avec des vidéos musicales et en remplissant les paroles de tes chansons préférées: Anglais, Espagnol, Français, Allemand, Italian, Japonais, Portugais, Néerlandais, Turc et bien plus encore.

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Ministère de l'Education Nationale et de la Jeunesse

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Cette note de service définit l'épreuve terminale de l'enseignement de spécialité langues, littératures et cultures étrangères et régionales de la classe de terminale. Elle est applicable à compter de la session 2021 du baccalauréat.

L'épreuve porte sur le programme de la classe terminale défini par l'arrêté du 19 juillet 2019 paru au BOEN spécial n° 8 du 25 juillet 2019 et sur le programme d'œuvres, renouvelé par moitié tous les deux ans. Elle prend également appui sur les acquis du programme de la classe de première. Les notions rencontrées en classe de première (cf. arrêté du 17 janvier 2019 paru au BOEN spécial n° 1 du 22 janvier 2019) mais non approfondies en classe de terminale, doivent être connues et mobilisables. Elles ne peuvent cependant pas constituer un ressort essentiel du sujet.

Seul l'oral évalue les œuvres figurant au programme limitatif. À l'écrit, les candidats ont le choix entre deux sujets qui prennent appui sur deux des trois thématiques du programme de terminale.

L'épreuve se compose d'une partie écrite et d'une partie orale, chacune comptant pour moitié de la note finale.

Partie écrite

Durée : 4 heures

Objectifs

L'épreuve vise à évaluer la maîtrise par le candidat des attendus du programme de l'enseignement de spécialité langues, littératures et cultures étrangères et régionales pour le cycle terminal.

Structure

- élaboration d'une synthèse d'un dossier documentaire, guidée par trois ou quatre questions ou consignes, en environ 500 mots. Le dossier documentaire est composé de trois ou quatre documents, dont au moins un texte littéraire et un seul document iconographique, adossés à l'une des thématiques au programme de l'enseignement de spécialité du cycle terminal. La longueur cumulée des textes est comprise entre 5 000 et 6 000 signes, blancs et espaces compris ;

- traduction en français d'un passage d'un des textes du dossier d'environ 600 signes, blancs et espaces compris.

Matériel autorisé : l'usage du dictionnaire unilingue non encyclopédique est autorisé.

Niveau attendu : B2/C1

Notation

L'épreuve est notée sur 20 points (synthèse : 16 points ; traduction : 4 points).

La grille d'évaluation présente en annexe est fournie aux correcteurs.

Partie orale

Durée : 20 minutes

Objectifs

L'épreuve vise à évaluer la maîtrise par le candidat des attendus du programme de l'enseignement de spécialité langues, littératures et cultures étrangères et régionales pour le cycle terminal.

Structure

L'épreuve consiste en un oral de 20 minutes qui s'appuie sur un dossier personnel présenté par le candidat et visé par son professeur de l'année de terminale.

Le candidat remet un exemplaire de son dossier à l'examinateur au début de sa prise de parole et en conserve un qu'il utilise selon ses besoins durant l'épreuve.

Si le candidat ne présente pas de dossier, l'examinateur lui remet trois documents de nature différente en lien avec une des thématiques du programme du cycle terminal. Le candidat commente ces documents.

Le dossier est composé de six à huit documents textuels et /ou iconographiques (étudiés ou non en classe) dont le fil conducteur se rattache à une ou plusieurs thématiques du programme du cycle terminal. Il comprend :

- au moins une des œuvres intégrales étudiées au cours du cycle terminal (œuvre matérialisée par un extrait ou une illustration) ;

- au moins deux textes littéraires, sans se limiter au genre romanesque ; le candidat peut prendre appui sur les annexes publiées avec les programmes du cycle terminal, mais peut, s'il le juge pertinent, enrichir son dossier de textes littéraires de son choix ;

- au plus deux œuvres d'art visuel (affiche, caricature, dessin, extrait de film, peinture, sculpture, etc.) ;

- au moins un texte non littéraire (article de presse, extrait de discours, d'essai, etc.).

Sans temps de préparation, le candidat présente son dossier dans la langue cible pendant 10 minutes au plus pour en justifier les choix et en exprimer la logique interne, puis interagit avec l'examinateur dans la langue cible pendant 10 minutes au plus.

Les candidats individuels sont soumis aux mêmes conditions et doivent présenter un dossier de même format.

Niveau attendu : B2/C1

Notation

L'épreuve est notée sur 20 points.

La grille d'évaluation présente en annexe est fournie aux correcteurs.

Candidats en situation de handicap

Les dispenses et aménagements de l'épreuve sont faits conformément à l'arrêté du 22 juillet 2019 relatif aux dispenses et aménagements d'épreuves de langue vivante pour les candidats au baccalauréat général et technologique présentant tout trouble relevant du handicap, publié au J.O. n° 0198 du 27 août 2019.

Épreuve orale de contrôle

Durée : 20 minutes.

Temps de préparation : 20 minutes.

L'évaluation prend appui sur un document découvert par le candidat au moment de l'épreuve. Ce document se rapporte à l'une des thématiques du programme et peut relever de genres très différents (image publicitaire, dessin humoristique, photographie, reproduction d'une œuvre plastique, slogan, titre d'article de presse, question invitant le candidat à prendre position sur un sujet d'actualité ou un phénomène de société, etc.).

L'examinateur propose au candidat deux documents. Chaque document est en lien avec une des thématiques du cycle terminal. Le candidat choisit l'un de ces documents et dispose ensuite de 20 minutes pour organiser ses idées et préparer son propos. Le document, qui ne donne pas lieu à un commentaire formel, doit permettre au candidat de prendre la parole librement. Cette prise de parole en continu, qui n'excède pas 10 minutes, sert d'amorce à une conversation conduite par l'examinateur, qui prend notamment appui sur l'exposé du candidat. Cette phase d'interaction n'excède pas 10 minutes.

Pour chaque candidat, l'examinateur conduit son évaluation à partir de la fiche d'évaluation et de notation publiée en annexe.

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Épreuve de l'enseignement de spécialité " langues, littératures et cultures étrangères et régionales " de la classe de terminale de la voie générale à compter de la session 2021 de l'examen du baccalauréat

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Cette note de service définit l'épreuve terminale de l'enseignement de spécialité langues, littératures et cultures étrangères et régionales de la classe de terminale. Elle est applicable à compter de la session 2021 du baccalauréat.

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Correction sujet bac 2023 environnements en mutation 

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Correction sujet bac 2023 environnements en mutation 

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Black Lives Matter: A movement in photos

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Black Lives Matter: A movement in photos

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Black Lives Matter: A movement in photos

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A look at the Black Lives Matter movement.

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Indigenous peoples and COP30: Guardians of the Earth, Voices for the Future

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Indigenous peoples and COP30: Guardians of the Earth, Voices for the Future

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Published on Sep 8, 2025 9:10 AM - Modified 2 months agoShare: link

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Indigenous peoples and COP30: Guardians of the Earth, Voices for the Future

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Letter from Sonia Guajajara, Minister of Indigenous Peoples of Brasil

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Black people, racism and human rights UK parliament 

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Black people, racism and human rights UK parliament 

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Banksy designs t-shirts to help Bristol's Colston statue defendants

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The world-famous street artist sold the design in stores across the city for £25 each to raise money for the four protestors charged with criminal damage over the disposal of a slave trader statue during a Black Lives Matter march.

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Black Lives Matter: how the UK movement struggled to be heard in the 2010s

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Black Lives Matter: how the UK movement struggled to be heard in the 2010s

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Black Lives Matter protests in 2016. Guy Corbishley/Alamy

Since the sweeping international protests at the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement in the UK has received a considerable amount of attention and support.

Protests in Nottingham in June 2020 saw an estimated 3,000 people stand in socially distanced solidarity, according to what I was told by the organisers. Other protests across the UK, including in Birmingham, Liverpool and Hull, demonstrated similar unease with anti-Black racism, sparking debates in the media and society about the UK's shortcomings in terms of tackling racism against Black people.

Numerous companies quickly released equality and diversity statements. Some, such as YouTube and L'Oréal, were criticised for lacking real empathy. Others, like Ben & Jerry's and Nike, were bold in their support of the movement. The much debated Blackout Tuesday protest - initially aimed at addressing racial inequality in music - also gained traction across the UK, albeit some argued that it was too small a gesture to create meaningful change.

By the end of 2020, what had started out as an expression of the injustice experienced by Black people around the world had morphed into a mass movement. As we shall see, however, the movement hasn't always enjoyed the level of compassion and concord it's experiencing today.

Beginnings of Black Lives Matter UK

The original Black Lives Matter movement was founded in the US in 2013 by three Black women - Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi - in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the killing of Black teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida in 2012. By 2015, the first Black Lives Matter chapter in Europe was set up in Nottingham.

In 2016, Black Lives Matter UK led a " national shutdown ", in which activists in Birmingham, Manchester, London and Nottingham blocked roads, the Nottingham tram system and London City airport for several hours to raise awareness about how racism and climate change are interconnected. The protest also marked the fifth anniversary of the police shooting of Mark Duggan, as well as highlighting deaths of Black people in police custody.

Read more: Mark Duggan lawful killing verdict leaves questions over police use of lethal force

One Black Lives Matter protester said the intention was to "put Black issues back onto the political agenda". Others used the opportunity to highlight a " racist climate crisis". But while the shutdown received media and public attention, some outlets were unsympathetic about the cause and attempted to decry the integrity and validity of the demonstrations. To many, the shutdown was considered irrational, and they argued there was no real requirement for protests in the UK.

In America, NBC reported that the UK Black Lives Matter movement didn't receive the same level of support from the public as in the US. The BBC also suggested that the Black Lives Matter marches were met with " some confusion ", with racism apparently perceived by some as a uniquely American problem.

Rather than acknowledge the inequality that Black people in the UK face, the movement attracted annoyance and frustration, with activists seen as unnecessarily disruptive, or too focused on environmentalism. It was a huge contrast to current widespread sentiments that the movement is justified.

Understanding the shift

In the hush created by the pandemic, there appeared to be sufficient quiet for the injustice of George Floyd's killing to reverberate unimpeded around the world. Black women in cities across the UK began to mobilise the public, with the likes of activists Kerry Nugent and Liza Bilal organising 2020 Black Lives Matter marches in Liverpool and Bristol respectively. The women-led Next Gen Movement was also behind Nottingham's Black Lives Matter protests.

It is worth pointing out that this was also after the 2019 youth climate strikes had taken place. This global effort, led by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, marked a turning point in recognising the dangers of the climate crisis. The protests gained considerable support, eventually giving way to conversations about the media's focus on white climate activists and the importance of highlighting climate-related racism, an idea Black Lives Matter had received criticism for in 2016.

Suddenly, the once blurred reality of Black people's experiences had become too blatant to ignore and empathy was offered up in droves, from public figures to political recognition of the movement.

But for Black women, visibility can also be a liability. Female Black Lives Matter activists I've spoken to have been threatened by right-wing activists and harassed by the media. Their activism hasn't always been supported by members of their community either. Some have experienced what one activist described to me as a "power struggle" with some of the movement's male members.

Indeed, the #SayHerName slogan was created in response to how Black women and girls are disregarded in cases of police brutality. While some Black women continue to be vocal and assert themselves, others manage these hostilities by remaining silent. Author Reni Eddo-Lodge describes this phenomenon in her book Why I'm No Longer Talking To White People About Race. She writes: "There is such stigma attached to speaking up and being a woman, let alone speaking up, being a woman, and being black."

Measuring progress

A year after the 2020 protests, there are small indications of improvement - more non-white faces on our screens, for example. But a year is still insufficient time to see significant change.

Also, the true measure of progress isn't a matter of optics. We'll know we're getting closer to eradicating racism when issues like racial health inequalities no longer exist; when there's racial equity in the employment market; when our prisons are no longer disproportionately occupied by people of colour; and when Black people - especially women - are able to speak up about their experiences or opinions without being demonised or ignored.

With continued racial abuse, an increase in reported hate crimes and the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities suggesting systemic and institutionalised racism doesn't exist, however, it's still difficult to be optimistic about the pace at which those advancements will take place.

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Black Lives Matter: how the UK movement struggled to be heard in the 2010s

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When the movement made its way from the United States in 2016, it wasn't met with nearly the same amount of support we see today.

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After the notorious acquittal of the man who shot Trayvon Martin, a hashtag was born that quickly became a movement, and the most significant push for racial justice since the nineteen-sixties. Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin, talks with David Remnick about the nationwide outcry over the killings of unarmed Black and brown people. A group of experts wrestle with the complicated question of how Black Lives Matter changed policing in the ten years since its founding and whether racial disparities among victims of police violence have abated at all. And the writer Nicole Sealey explains how the Ferguson, Missouri, protests over the death of Michael Brown led her to a response in poetry.

Sybrina Fulton: "Trayvon Martin Could Have Been Anybody's Son"

The mother whose teen-age boy's death inspired a movement a little more than a decade ago continues to grieve his loss, and to demand accountability.

Is a "Win-Win" Still Possible in Policing?

Kai Wright leads a roundtable discussion about the attempts to reform policing in the wake of Black Lives Matter and whether those efforts have had a positive impact.

Nicole Sealey Erased the Ferguson Report So That You Will See It

When the poet read the damning report on the police who killed Michael Brown, she imagined a different future embedded in it by erasing it into a work of lyric poetry.
The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

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The mother of Trayvon Martin and others on what Black Lives Matter has achieved in ten years, and what it hasn't.

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Norman Rockwell: Imagining Freedom - FDR's Four Freedoms

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Norman Rockwell: Imagining Freedom - FDR's Four Freedoms

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NOT long ago, being the boss of a big Western tech firm was a dream job. As the billions rolled in, so did the plaudits: Google, Facebook, Amazon and others were making the world a better place. Today these companies are accused of being BAADD-big, anti-competitive, addictive and destructive to democracy. Regulators fine them, politicians grill them and one-time backers warn of their power to cause harm.

Much of this techlash is misguided. The presumption that big businesses must necessarily be wicked is plain wrong. Apple is to be admired as the world's most valuable listed company for the simple reason that it makes things people want to buy, even while facing fierce competition. Many online services would be worse if their providers were smaller. Evidence for the link between smartphones and unhappiness is weak. Fake news is not only an online phenomenon.

But big tech platforms, particularly Facebook, Google and Amazon, do indeed raise a worry about fair competition. That is partly because they often benefit from legal exemptions. Unlike publishers, Facebook and Google are rarely held responsible for what users do on them; and for years most American buyers on Amazon did not pay sales tax. Nor do the titans simply compete in a market. Increasingly, they are the market itself, providing the infrastructure (or "platforms") for much of the digital economy. Many of their services appear to be free, but users "pay" for them by giving away their data. Powerful though they already are, their huge stockmarket valuations suggest that investors are counting on them to double or even triple in size in the next decade.

There is thus a justified fear that the tech titans will use their power to protect and extend their dominance, to the detriment of consumers (see article). The tricky task for policymakers is to restrain them without unduly stifling innovation.

The less severe contest

The platforms have become so dominant because they benefit from "network effects". Size begets size: the more sellers Amazon, say, can attract, the more buyers will shop there, which attracts more sellers, and so on. By some estimates, Amazon captures over 40% of online shopping in America. With more than 2bn monthly users, Facebook holds sway over the media industry. Firms cannot do without Google, which in some countries processes more than 90% of web searches. Facebook and Google control two-thirds of America's online ad revenues.

America's trustbusters have given tech giants the benefit of the doubt. They look for consumer harm, which is hard to establish when prices are falling and services are "free". The firms themselves stress that a giant-killing startup is just a click away and that they could be toppled by a new technology, such as the blockchain. Before Google and Facebook, Alta Vista and MySpace were the bee's knees. Who remembers them?

However, the barriers to entry are rising. Facebook not only owns the world's largest pool of personal data, but also its biggest "social graph"-the list of its members and how they are connected. Amazon has more pricing information than any other firm. Voice assistants, such as Amazon's Alexa and Google's Assistant, will give them even more control over how people experience the internet. China's tech firms have the heft to compete, but are not about to get unfettered access to Western consumers.

If this trend runs its course, consumers will suffer as the tech industry becomes less vibrant. Less money will go into startups, most good ideas will be bought up by the titans and, one way or another, the profits will be captured by the giants.

The early signs are already visible. The European Commission has accused Google of using control of Android, its mobile operating system, to give its own apps a leg up. Facebook keeps buying firms which could one day lure users away: first Instagram, then WhatsApp and most recently tbh, an app that lets teenagers send each other compliments anonymously. Although Amazon is still increasing competition in aggregate, as industries from groceries to television can attest, it can also spot rivals and squeeze them from the market.

The rivalry remedy

What to do? In the past, societies have tackled monopolies either by breaking them up, as with Standard Oil in 1911, or by regulating them as a public utility, as with AT&T in 1913. Today both those approaches have big drawbacks. The traditional tools of utilities regulation, such as price controls and profit caps, are hard to apply, since most products are free and would come at a high price in forgone investment and innovation. Likewise, a full-scale break-up would cripple the platforms' economies of scale, worsening the service they offer consumers. And even then, in all likelihood one of the Googlettes or Facebabies would eventually sweep all before it as the inexorable logic of network effects reasserted itself.

The lack of a simple solution deprives politicians of easy slogans, but does not leave trustbusters impotent. Two broad changes of thinking would go a long way towards sensibly taming the titans. The first is to make better use of existing competition law. Trustbusters should scrutinise mergers to gauge whether a deal is likely to neutralise a potential long-term threat, even if the target is small at the time. Such scrutiny might have prevented Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and Google's of Waze, which makes navigation software. To ensure that the platforms do not favour their own products, oversight groups could be set up to deliberate on complaints from rivals-a bit like the independent "technical committee" created by the antitrust case against Microsoft in 2001. Immunity to content liability must go, too.

Second, trustbusters need to think afresh about how tech markets work. A central insight, one increasingly discussed among economists and regulators, is that personal data are the currency in which customers actually buy services. Through that prism, the tech titans receive valuable information-on their users' behaviour, friends and purchasing habits-in return for their products. Just as America drew up sophisticated rules about intellectual property in the 19th century, so it needs a new set of laws to govern the ownership and exchange of data, with the aim of giving solid rights to individuals.

In essence this means giving people more control over their information. If a user so desires, key data should be made available in real time to other firms-as banks in Europe are now required to do with customers' account information. Regulators could oblige platform firms to make anonymised bulk data available to competitors, in return for a fee, a bit like the compulsory licensing of a patent. Such data-sharing requirements could be calibrated to firms' size: the bigger platforms are, the more they have to share. These mechanisms would turn data from something titans hoard, to suppress competition, into something users share, to foster innovation.

None of this will be simple, but it would tame the titans without wrecking the gains they have brought. Users would find it easier to switch between services. Upstart competitors would have access to some of the data that larger firms hold and thus be better equipped to grow to maturity without being gobbled up. And shareholders could no longer assume monopoly profits for decades to come.

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NOT long ago, being the boss of a big Western tech firm was a dream job. As the billions rolled in, so did the plaudits: Google, Facebook, Amazon and others were making the world a better place. Today these companies are accused of being BAADD-big, anti-competitive, addictive and destructive to democracy.

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Big Tech, Explained for Beginners with Tips, History, Learning, Resources

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Big Tech, Explained for Beginners with Tips, History, Learning, Resources

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Big Tech, Explained for Beginners with Tips, History, Learning, Resources

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How much power does tech 'big four' have? - BBC News

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Summary of the U.S. Presidential Election Process 

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Summary of the U.S. Presidential Election Process 

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Americans will head to the polls in November 2024 to elect the next US president. The person sitting in the White House's Oval Office has a big influence on people's lives both at home and abroad, so the outcome of this election matters for everyone.

The US political system today is dominated by just two parties, so every president in modern times has belonged to one of them.

The Democrats are the liberal political party, with an agenda defined largely by its push for civil rights, a broad social safety net and measures to address climate change.

It is the party of incumbent President Joe Biden, who is trying to secure a second term in power.

The Republicans are the conservative political party in the US. Also known as the GOP, or the Grand Old Party, it has stood for lower taxes, shrinking the size of the government, gun rights and tighter restrictions on immigration and abortion.

The party hasn't yet picked its presidential candidate.

When is the next US presidential election?

The 2024 election will be on Tuesday, 5 November 2024. The winner will serve a term of four years in the White House starting in January 2025.

Who are the candidates and how are they nominated?

The 2024 presidential campaign is well under way. It started with 15 candidates - nine Republicans, four Democrats and two independents - although some of them have already dropped out of the race.

President Biden announced his re-election bid earlier this year and - despite some long-shot challenges - is expected to win the nomination easily.

In the Republican Party, polls show former President Donald Trump is well ahead of the rest of candidates. There are also some independent candidates, including Robert F Kennedy Jr, nephew to former president John F Kennedy.

The two main parties nominate a presidential candidate by holding a series of state primaries and caucuses that begin in Iowa in January.

There are differences between the parties and the process varies from one state to another.

One of the biggest days is called "Super Tuesday" on March 3 because more than a dozen states will hold their primary contests on that day. It may be clear after that who the Republican party will nominate.

How does the US presidential election work?

Both candidates compete to win electoral college votes.

Each state has a certain number of electoral college votes partly based on its population and there are a total of 538 up for grabs, so the winner is the candidate that wins 270 or more.

This means voters decide state-level contests rather than the national one, which is why it's possible for a candidate to win the most votes nationally - like Hillary Clinton did in 2016 - but still be defeated by the electoral college.

All but two states have a winner-takes-all rule, so whichever candidate wins the highest number of votes is awarded all of the state's electoral college votes.

Most states lean heavily towards one party or the other, so the focus is usually on a dozen or so states where either of them could win. These are known as the battleground states.

Who else is being elected?

All of the attention will be on who wins the presidency, but voters will also be choosing new members of Congress - the government's legislature - when they fill in their ballots.

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election, while 33 Senate seats are also up for grabs.

Republicans control the House and Democrats are in charge of the Senate.

These two chambers pass legislation so can act as a check on White House plans if the controlling party in either chamber disagrees with the president.

Who can vote?

If you're a US citizen and you're 18 or over, you should be eligible to vote in the presidential election, which takes place every four years.

When do we know who has won the election?

Usually a winner is declared on the night of the election, but in 2020 it took a few days to count all the votes.

The period after the election is know as the transition if there is a change of president.

It's a time for the new administration, including cabinet ministers, to form and make plans for the new term.

The president is officially sworn into office in January in a ceremony known as the inauguration, held on the steps of the Capitol building in Washington DC.

More on the 2024 election

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